


the wild thorns (will) grow tame

by tortoiseshells



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Becoming a Team (Or Not), Canon Compliant, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Team Dynamics, Wanda Maximoff (mentioned only)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29830056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells
Summary: “He’s heard that she’s not adjusting very well.  He’s concerned that if she’s not, then she has no intention of staying with us. And if she’s not with us-” Steve trails off, frowning.Natasha levels him a calculating look. “Tony’s afraid of her.”Or, two conversations about Wanda Maximoff and the Avengers, and becoming an Avenger, post-Age of Ultron.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff & Natasha Romanov, Wanda Maximoff & Steve Rogers, Wanda Maximoff & Vision
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	the wild thorns (will) grow tame

“So,” says Tony, casually pouring his favorite green sludge out of the blender, “How’s our newest stray?”

“Stray?”

“Yeah. Wanda Maximoff. The little witch.”

Steve Rogers weighs his words. “She’s adjusting.”

“Rhodey’s been saying she hides in boltholes all day, unless she’s training. Or if someone leaves goulash out for her on the counter.”

“Her brother’s been gone for two months. Seems normal to me.” Steve’s reply is only a little defensive.

“It’s a little Victorian, isn’t it? The seclusion, the moping, the Ozzy eyeshadow. It doesn’t sound much like adjusting.”

Tony swigs the smoothie, flashing a thin smile, and Steve instantly knows what this is about: the red magic, the unbridled rage that Wanda directed at Tony and all the Avengers along with him, the damage that her not-entirely-misplaced anger had wrought. _How_ , Tony’s asking, _can I be sure she’s not going to turn coat again? How do we know she won’t hurt the team?_

“Sam talks to her, sometimes. She acts like she trusts him.”

“Sam Wilson let you and Nat into his apartment without a second thought after you’d exchanged, what, a dozen words with him on the Mall?”

“And?”

“Just observing, Cap. Wilson’s not exactly a suspicious guy.”

Steve doesn’t respond, not immediately – weighing out the benefits of correcting Tony (it’s ridiculous to say a man who’s spent years at the VA or surviving the military isn’t suspicious; Sam knows who and how to trust, and relies on his good judgment) versus the costs (listening to another Tony Stark lecture about relationships within the team, as though Tony _hadn’t_ fallen in love with Pep when she was his assistant). Discretion being the better part of valor, he shakes his head, and lets Tony go on.

“And what about Romanoff? Does she trust Maximoff?”

“She’ll be flattered to hear you trust her judgment now,” Steve deflects, drily.

“ _Does_ she?”

“Not entirely. Definitely more than you.”

“That’s hardly a ringing endorsement,” Tony waves his hand dismissively, “And what about you? You forgiven her for that little ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’ moment yet? For helping a murderbot to accelerate the Holocene extinction? For volunteering to be Strucker’s lab rat? Or is that all water under the bridge to you?”

“I don’t have to,” _Have to what? Forgive her? Like her? Trust her?_ “She volunteered. She wants to be an Avenger, that’s all that matters.”

Tony puts his glass in the sink, and cocks an eyebrow. “You don’t sound very sure. Well, good luck, take care, auf viedersehen. I’m late for – something.”

* * *

Later that evening, up to his elbows in the sink, Steve glances over his shoulder as his co-lead. “Tony talk to you today, too?”

Natasha makes a non-committal noise, not looking up from the latest training reports.

“He’s worried about Wanda,” he continues. Or prompts; he’s never quite sure who’s helming their conversations.

“He doesn’t trust her.”

“That too.”

She appears to consider this for a long moment. “He wants her off the team?”

“Not in so many words.”

“So what did he say?”

“He’s heard that she’s not adjusting very well. He’s concerned that if she’s not, then she has no intention of staying with us. And if she’s not with us-” Steve trails off, frowning.

Natasha levels him a calculating look. “Tony’s afraid of her.”

“Seems prudent.”

“Maybe so.”

She can tell he’s still struggling with something, and sits patiently, carefully tapping her pen against the counter. Steve keeps washing the night’s dishes, painstakingly and thoroughly. Music plays in the next room; Rhodey and Sam have the news on, and are batting increasingly ridiculous passages of the Wells Report back and forth. Neither of them particularly care about Tom Brady or Deflategate or whatever CNN’s calling it now – but both pretty keenly feel that underhanded football tricks are miles ahead of the unceasing commentary on Sokovia, or the Greek bankruptcy referendums, or the TPP, or any of the sundry other disasters the year has brought – at least as far as after-dinner conversation goes.

(Steve hasn’t heard either Vision or Wanda in the conversation at all. He sets the sauce-pan aside, and pokes his head into the lounge: neither of the two are there. He’s frowning again, he realizes.)

“You think Tony’s right,” Natasha says quietly, “But you don’t want him to be.”

“I think he has a point. We don’t know what she’s capable of. We don’t know what she’s thinking.”

She _hmm_ s, looking back down at her tablet.

“I told him she made a choice to be here,” Steve adds, seeing that she isn’t going to say anything else immediately.

“Good enough for me,” she shrugs, and signaling that she’s done with the conversation.

That’s fine by Steve; he wants to work over the problem for himself. Tony isn’t right about all of what he said, but Wanda _is_ struggling. Struggling in a way that’s half-familiar to all of them, but refracted, like light through water. An orphan. A weapon. A stranger in a strange land. Unknown to herself. Stubborn and proud.

He remembers what being young and almost entirely alone felt like, passing bread lines with an empty stomach and visiting his mother’s grave every day. That kind of hunger, that kind of grief left a mark on him. Without Bucky – he’d had nothing. Was nothing. Just a hollow belly and a burning sense that there could be justice in the world.

Then the world changed. He changed – not with it, but a step or two behind; maybe seventy-odd years of beauty sleep cushioned the worst blows he’d felt as his war came to its horrible end. Maybe not. Grief was _grief_ , and he knows it made him reckless – in ’45, then last year. Even now, if he’s honest with himself.

Steve shakes his head, as though those thoughts could be so easily dismissed. There’s still one thing he doesn’t quite understand from his conversation with Tony. “Who’s been leaving food out for Wanda?”

She quirked her eyebrow. “You don’t know?”

“Have you?”

“She doesn’t think much of my lenivye golubsty,” says Natasha, with a wry twist that might have been a smile, “Says they’re the inferior relations of true Sokovian sarmale.”

Steve assumes this means _not often_.

“Who?”

“Vision.”

Steve _hmm_ s, and slots that information away for later.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally (back in 2018, whoof) going to be part of a much longer piece that was _theoretically_ going to be a counterpoint to [Treason Crackling In Your Blood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15949151), but I never really got past the concept/ general idea, so I cut down the scope to just two conversations in the wake of _Age of Ultron_.
> 
> Like the first, title taken from Robert Lowell's "Mr. Edwards and the Spider".


End file.
